Shocking-atrocious-unsupportable. The images of
butchery in Gaza break one's heart because of their barbarity and extreme
cruelty. In the prize list for horror, Israel has long taken the lead, and the
cold-blooded carnage last Friday, committed by Tsahal [Israeli Defense Forces]
– "the army of peace!" – against the family of 10-year-old Houda
Ghalya, is merely a "point of detail" in the vast catalogue of crimes
committed by the Hebrew State over the past 60 years.

The
repression and cruelty being committed against the Palestinians has reached
heights never before seen. Every day brings a new batch of dead and wounded,
destroyed homes and devastated fields. The blockade of towns and villages
starves a population confined to misery and suffocating in far-flung, isolated
"enclaves." Cruel treatment, torture - including children and women
(according to a report from Harts) - assassinations of those in charge and
humiliation at check points demonstrate the martyrdom of an entire population
abandoned by the international community and left to its fate.

"Israel
has the right to defend itself," contends George Walker Bush, without even
blushing. By adopting this theory, the White House Chief knows he is strangling
the truth. He demonizes the victim and exonerates the torturer. The resistance
of the Palestinian people to Israeli invasion is depicted as abject terrorism,
while the state terrorism practiced by Israel over the past 75 years is
considered self-defense and perfectly justified.

The
policies of EhudOlmert, the heir of Sharon, and the policies of George Bush, agree on every point. The first
destroys, kills and humiliates en masse; the second - the great protecting
Godfather - covers up for and justifies the acts of the first. A programmed
extermination executed under the cover of legitimacy provided by the nation
that is supposed to be the "the keeper of justice and morality" … It
would be hard to improve upon such coordination.

Since his
arrival in power, George Bush Jr. has bound the fate of his country up with
that of the Hebrew state to the point that American values and interests have
become cemented to Israel's unspoken agenda. None of his predecessors ever
demonstrated such an unconditional and unlimited commitment to the benefit of
this State; a situation that has finally begun to worry Americans themselves.

A recent
study undertaken by U.S. scholars Stephen Walt and John Marshier []
has sounded the alarm. In this report, entitled "The Israeli Lobby and
U.S. Foreign Policy," both professors ask, "Why has the United States
been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of
another state?"

The
theory stands opposed to current American reasoning that the terrorist threat
has brought Israel and the U.S. closer. For the two university professors,
"the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely
allied with Israel, not the other way around."

The
authors of the report draw the conclusion that in reality, Israel is a
"strategic burden" for the United States in its campaign against
terrorism; and they quote Israel's principal leaders who have all had recourse
to terrorism, from David Ben Gordon, through Yitzhak Shame, Men him Begin and
HUD Bark, who all became Prime Ministers after long careers as terrorists
(Stern, Hagan …). This study was released with a bang in the United States; but
no publication has dared endorse its conclusions for fear of being labeled
anti-Semitic, because any criticism of Israel is automatically condemned under
this label.

'Why do these people hate us?' ... Olmert's non-stop butchery
of Palestinians in Gaza ... Bush: 'Israel has the right to defend itself!'
[Ad Dustour].

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While
America's staunchly pro-Israel position no longer astonishes (89 U.S. vetoes
against resolutions condemning Israel!), Europe's attitude is disconcerting.
The unnerving white-washing of over 40 years of evidence leaves one perplexed;
and reduces Europe to the rank of fading power with no real voice on this
matter. But what happens on its southern flank should be of the greatest
interest to Europe, since at stake is not only the destiny of the southern
Mediterranean countries, but Europe's own security, stability and development.

But
perhaps this is too much to require from others when the defeatism of the Arab
World itself is absolute, and when the main actors - the Palestinians -are preparing themselves for civil war.